


Hidden by hill or hedge

by hayatefan



Category: The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:00:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24385462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hayatefan/pseuds/hayatefan
Summary: An exercise, free-writing from the first sentence of the Hobbit. So far it's worldbuilding.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 3





	1. But what is a hobbit?

**Author's Note:**

> Just a creative writing exercise, free-writing from an existing sentence.

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a dirty or nasty hole, but a snug and dry hole: a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort. But what is a hobbit, you ask? Ah! They were a wonder. Half the height of an adult man, plump, with bare but hairy feet. They had curly hair and brown skin and brown eyes. Some said they were a branch of dwarves, a smaller race closer to the surface; others said they were the children of Yavanna, imitating her husband's designs, in earth rather than stone. Others yet again, including most of the Wise, said that they were an offshoot of Man, shrunk in size and grown in stealth. But none East of the Sea can say for sure.

In the time of which I speak, hobbits occupied a broad and fertile realm called the Shire, in the land of Eriador. The Shire had once been part of a great kingdom of men, but most of the people had died to disease and war, first many at once, and then the survivors disappearing one by one, settlement by settlement. But the hobbits had survived the plagues, been overlooked by wars, resisted raiders, and grown well on their own, so they had become the greatest, almost the only, civilization in Eriador. Though they were ignored as simple farmers by the dwarves, and as not particularly interesting mortals by the elves, who both passed through the Shire along the ancient dwarf-road that itself followed the great migration path of the Eldar to the west, there were in fact over a million hobbits, and more every day.

It was easy to ignore hobbits, for they made it so. Most of them distrusted other folk and disliked much traffic with them, so their settlements were largely out of sight from the Road. Often quite close! but hidden by hill or hedge. There were of course many who did live on the Road, hobbits more adventurous or commercial, catering to the travelers or to the Shire's internal trade, but these were small villages not hinting at the great population nearby and further away. Though the attentive traveler might note the small number of buildings, mostly inns and shops, and wonder who was producing the food and items in those buildings.

As individuals hobbits were also quite easy to overlook. (And they would chuckle or simply roll their eyes at my joke.) Even young hobbit children had an instinct for walking softly, rather than the great gallumphing stomps of human children, and hobbits could hold quite still, their brown skin and green-and-brown clothing blending in with woods and hedge to an uncanny degree. Even the keen-sighted elves had trouble spotting a hobbit who did not wish to be seen, and the Rangers who, unasked, guarded the borders of the land, often had no idea of the Bounders who watched them suspiciously from the bushes.


	2. Rangers and Bounders

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a few words about an unimportant topic

Now, about this hobbit-- what? You would rather hear about the Rangers? You think they sound more interesting than some little hobbit who avoids people? Well, I think you're missing the point, but I can see what you mean. So just a few words:

The human kingdom that once had spanned Eriador was that of Arnor, founded by men fleeing from the destruction of the island of Westernesse. These men, the Dunedain, had been blessed with many gifts: long life of over 200 years, and various powers more akin to elf-magic than human craft. They had built impossible fortresses and forged spell-swords against their undead enemies. Their diminished descendants could still read the thoughts behind your voice and face, tame wild horses with a word, heal ailments of body and mind with herb and song, and march fourteen leagues in a day, or so it is said. After the fall of Arnor those descendants had withdrawn into marshes to the east, close to their elf-kindred, but they still sent out the Rangers, men (and occasionally women) charged with defending the remaining people of Arnor, at their own cost, without tax or lordship. They had done their best, but by now their task had been greatly simplified, for instead of scattered settlements vulnerable to orc or troll, there was now only the Shire, one single but large point to rally around.

The Dunedain were for the most part tall, moderately pale of skin, dark of hair and grey of eyes. In Westernesse more of them them had been blond and blue eyed, but most of that kindred had turned to evil, and been caught up in the Downfall; the survivors were as described. Some, though, were much darker, the product of two thousand years of voyaging and empire far down the shores of Middle-earth, and a few looked less human than dwarves did, distant kindred of the Druedain who had once lived in Westernesse, but fled long before its end.

Now, most hobbits wanted little to do or think about the outside world, such as it was at this time, but to help them, the hobbits who did take such thought had arranged for the Watch, particularly the Bounders, who guarded the borders of the Shire from the unwanted, whether wolf, goblin, or outlaw-men. There were enough young hobbits who did have a spirit of adventure that they didn't have to be paid much, tuppence a week for their own use, though rather more as allowance to compensate the border families they relied on for food and lodging. The Bounders had bow or sling, short sword, and gambesons they usually wore only in winter or rare crisis. Their chief defense was to not be seen: if they didn't like the look of you then you would hear a warning voice from the trees or undergrowth, and perhaps get an arrow shot in front of your feet, and if they really didn't like the look of you then you would just get the arrow, and not in the ground.

The Bounders had learned that the Rangers, while alarming looking, seemed to mean well, and many a Bounder emerged to share a meal or drink or round of pipe-weed. Still, few Rangers realized that they were not in fact the primary defense of the Shire, though even fewer Bounders realized there were threats turned aside which they never saw and were ill-equipped to deal with.

The Shire did not have much politics -- or rather, it had quite a lot of politics, but local, and little Shire-wide politics. One issue it did have was over the direction of the Bounders. The Thain, a war-leadership that was little used and thus acceptably hereditary among the numerous but disreputable Tooks, claimed they fell under the military responsibility of the office; the Mayor asserted a rather more convincing legitimacy of election. Since the Bounders were funded and authorized not by the Shire-moot (which hardly met) but by the septennial Free Fair that elected the Mayor, the latter reliably won such arguments. But if the Thain were polite and not too full of himself, then the Mayor -- likely a respectable and commercial sort, little-inclined to thoughts of violence and defense -- would likely delegate to him. Even if not, there were enough Tooks in the Watch that the Thain always had a fair bit of influence.

The Dunedain had their own tension. The former kingship had descended to a Chieftain of the Dunedain, who was also Chieftain of the Rangers -- and thus rarely actually around to make decisions for the settlement of the Dunedain. A Steward, sometimes the wife or mother of the Chieftain, sometimes another elder, generally ran things, and sometimes there would be conflict when a Chieftain who rarely lived there thought he could override the decisions of his Steward.

Strangest of all was their relationship to their elf-kindred. For near the Dunedain camp was the valley of Imladris, or Rivendell, run by Elrond Half-elven, the great- -- with many, many, greats- -- great-uncle of the Chieftains. Often the heirs of the kings of Arnor had been fostered with him, and all of the heirs of the Chieftains were, and he held the royal heirlooms of Arnor for safekeeping. He claimed no lordship over the descendants of his brother's people -- he barely claimed a lordship even among the elves, despite being the default heir to two different kingships -- and yet his opinion, no matter how cautiously and rarely expressed, had nearly the status of law. The Dunedain were an independent people, and yet all their Chiefs for a thousand years looked to him as a second father, and the ageless sons of Elrond rode with the Rangers.


	3. Chapter 3

Now, about that hobbit! Her name was Belladonna Took, and she did not live alone in her hole, for it was a great big hole, or a great number of holes cutting and running into each other, called Great Smials, and it was where most of the Tooks lived. Her parents, siblings, cousins, second cousins, in-laws, and so on, many generations of many branches of the great clan of Tooks. Door upon door, window upon window, looked out of the hills, from terrace on terrace: home, schoolhouse, granary, storeroom, library, armory, treasury. Rooms full of dried grain and smoked meats, rooms full of arrows and slingstones. The Tooks had lived here from before the Shire became safe and settled, when goblins or trolls or evil men would raid, and the Thains still took their war-leader role seriously, or ridiculously in the eye of most other hobbits.

Many of the holes were small, sized comfortably for hobbits, but some were taller, to impress, or to accommodate larger guests. The Great Entrance Hall and a few of the guest rooms adjacent to it were ten feet high, so even the tallest of the Children of Iluvatar, whether Elu Thingol reborn or Elendil the Tall, could have visited the Thain in room and comfort. Not that such was likely! But some of the Thains dreamed. And they did occasionally receive tall guests, even now, most often the wizard Gandalf, and the occasional Ranger, and once in a blue moon, though not in memory of living hobbits, an Elf.


End file.
